So, there's been some talk here about PbtA and how it compares to Trad Games. I feel that for the benefit of analysis, it makes sense to turn to examples of play in PbtA with some authority and compare them with the kind of RPGs many of us have grown up with. And what better examples to turn to than the freely available examples of play that come with Apocalypse World 1E and the Dungeon World guide? So let's hear it from the horse's mouth! If you got any more points to add, based on these two examples of play, anything I may have overlooked, please feel invited to do add to it.

• Gloss Over: This is, in part, not a difference in rules but in philosophy: Scenes aren't necessarily played out (from the AW example: "Do you stick around?" - "Fuck no." - "Where do you go?" - "I go home, I guess."), the siutation isn't simulated. In the above situation, for example, Plover does not get a chance to detect that Isle has been attacked. And in the DW example, the GM handwaves the damage of a "called shot" attack to the arm. While this may also happen in trad games, it's fairly safe to say that it's less common in games with any simulationist bent.
  
• Circumstances: This is a specific (and major) gloss-over: the lack of circumstantial modifiers to task (move) difficulty. The Dungeon World Guide even explicitly states: "Remember, Dungeon World isn't about difficulty, it's about consequences." Consequentially, a "called shot" attack to the arm in the DW example isn't more difficult than any other attack.
  
• GM generosity: Another ethos-level difference. In the AW example of play, the GM blindly accepts that Marie always has her violation glove on. In a simulationist approach, you'd probably give her a percent chance to have it on. But PbtA isn't about difficulty!
  
• Physics in general: Another specific form of gloss over is that physics are largely not handled in the crunch. Who can act when and for how long? How far can you move? All off-loaded to the GM's narration.
  
• Party Dynamics: The player characters don't hang out together (don't split the party?) - which is probably aided by the "gloss over" philosophy that is in support of ending scenes unceremoniously (as needed) and bridging time and space quickly for the next scene. Also, the players don't seem bent to support each other (Keeler's permission that Plover moves on Marie).
  

• Complications: In the DW example, a defeated golem threatens to collapse on one of the PCs. This is a dice-generated event, whereas in a trad game, the GM would decide such a thing capriciously. And since Moves snowball, these complications keep piling on - which might be too breathless for some gamers while exciting for others.
  
• Choice: Tied to complications, the players quite frequently get to choose which specific effect a (partially?) successful Move should have ("I'll choose to inlict terrible harm, and to impress, dismay, or frighten my enemy."). This is much less common in traditional RPGs, especially those with binary task resolution. Here, it's the GM who generally unilaterally decides on the exact outcome and narrates it to the players.
  
• Codification: AW/DW come each with playbooks representing stereotypical characters, each coming with a set of stereotypical Moves. These Moves stipulate the above mentioned Complications and Choices, depending on the result of a die roll.
  

So what does the above mean in total? PbtA codifies genre-typical events (mostly complications, think of how Indiana Jones stumbles from one calamity into the next one). By doing so, it addresses questions of dramaturgy in RPGs, with the underlying philosophy apparently being "Never a dull moment...".
The price for that is giving up on any pretense of world simulation. Discarding circumstantial modifiers and any rigid world physics are the most egregious examples of this gloss-over mentality when it comes to modeling a living world to play in.

What's the bottom line? As presented in the official examples of play, AW/DW simulate genre thorugh story elements. Moves are cascading ("snowballing") building blocks of typical story elements, strung together. So they might be classified as genre simulation RPGs.

How do they stack up to other genre simulation RPGs though? In comparison to AW/DW, the Knights of the Black Lily RPG*, for example, is derived from studying fiction (for example movie fight scenes) and deriving world rules ("physics") from them: for example, major heroes and/or villains usually die on the 2nd to 4th serious wound in cinematic combat. Or how many mooks does a hero kill in a 5 second timeframe? Think how cars tend to explode in the cinema world in Last Action Hero. This is more typical for traditional RPGs; they also may emulate genre - but they tend to emulate genre worlds... and dramaturgy tends to be just what happens, with dramaturgy mechanics being glossed over the way PbtA glosses over world mechanics. (KotBL tries to address the latter in part through Fortune Points.)

As a final observation then we can witness that one line between traditional games and more narrative games runs through genre simulation games: Trad Games are more genre world-emulation games whereas Narrative Games are more genre story-emulation games. This observation is perhaps not as surprising if we remind ourselves that in RPGs genre is composed of both common setting as well as plot elements of a given collection of genre fiction, lending itself to very different approaches to simulation.






*What has prompted this analysis was a German reviewer calling AW a fenre emulation game. And since it works so differently from KotBL, I decided to take a deeper look at it to see if that was a misnomer or if I was classifying my own game wrongly. Turns out that neither was the case.

Please explain the "gloss over" philosophy more. Trad games abstract lots and I'd like to understand the differences.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1097530Please explain the "gloss over" philosophy more. Trad games abstract lots and I'd like to understand the differences.

Basically,where a more traditional game will note exactly how far a PC can move per round, in an AW game this is done by a combination of GM fiat/common sense. Also each roll has 3 levels of success: fail, partial success (success with complication/ setback/ consequences), full success (no consequences etc.)

So basically:

PC: I jump across the chasm!

GM: Cool! roll Brave Danger! What do you get?

PC: A 9, damn! Partial success...

GM: You barley make it! you grab a root sticking out of the other side and are just holding on to the edge of the cliff!

More simulationist game:

PC: I jump across the chasm! My leap is good for 15 feet.

GM: Cool! roll your (insert skill/attribute whatever here) What do you get?

PC: A 9! Whew I made it! I keep running after him...

GM: Alrighty then! (turns to next payer) Bob what does Grognack the Slayer do...?


So AW games abstract a whole lot and rely on GM fiat (being done in a fair way of course...) as a core part of the resolution mechanic. Basically rules light play with codification of certain areas to push genre enforcement.

I've actually Gm'ed this system for 2-3 years now, including a single campaign that ran about a year. To present a review from direct experience, I'll compare your well-presented observations with what has happened at our table (for what it's worth).

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525Gloss Over: This is, in part, not a difference in rules but in philosophy: Scenes aren't necessarily played out (from the AW example: "Do you stick around?" - "Fuck no." - "Where do you go?" - "I go home, I guess."), the siutation isn't simulated. In the above situation, for example, Plover does not get a chance to detect that Isle has been attacked. And in the DW example, the GM handwaves the damage of a "called shot" attack to the arm. While this may also happen in trad games, it's fairly safe to say that it's less common in games with any simulationist bent.
Circumstances: This is a specific (and major) gloss-over: the lack of circumstantial modifiers to task (move) difficulty. The Dungeon World Guide even explicitly states: "Remember, Dungeon World isn't about difficulty, it's about consequences." Consequentially, a "called shot" attack to the arm in the DW example isn't more difficult than any other attack.

True, though you can houserule difficulty in via Disad, if you wanted (roll 3d6, take the lowest 2). The GM could also not allow a roll, or allow the task to auto-succeed. Since DW isn't granular at all, my players didn't bother a **whole** lot with called shots and the like. They were quite creative in narrating what they wanted to do, which led to a great deal of tactical combat, since they would concentrate on using the environment and such. Plus, not being beholden to widgets like Feats, they felt free to attempt things they might not normally attempt, since they weren't compelled to tap specific powers and such. On the whole, your conclusion, "it's about consequences" really does sum it up, though. Make the called shot, but you might succeed with a complication, or fail. And, since it IS a called shot, a failure can really allow the GM to mess with you.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525GM generosity: Another ethos-level difference. In the AW example of play, the GM blindly accepts that Marie always has her violation glove on. In a simulationist approach, you'd probably give her a percent chance to have it on. But PbtA isn't about difficulty!

The GM doesn't have to accept anything, if it doesn't fit the "fiction." But, since it's primarily a "say yes" system, you often do, because quibbling over whether someone has something on them that they probably would seems nitpicky. As for difficulty, which you've mentioned twice now, I'd say that you have to think about difficulty as something other than a DC or Target Number. What makes a situation difficult is the situation itself. It's not numerical, though DW uses numbers to aid in adjudication (like any other system). Again, you go with the fiction, which is why a 16 HP Dragon can be a terrible foe, due to its tags, and assumed capabilities. I found it freeing, as a GM, because I didn't have to refer to blocks of text to inform me about what makes a foe dangerous. It might have the move, "Melt them," which means just what it says. A character fails to dodge, he gets melted! That's old school, by feel, at least. (though, to be honest, I hate the death mechanic in DW).

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525Physics in general: Another specific form of gloss over is that physics are largely not handled in the crunch. Who can act when and for how long? How far can you move? All off-loaded to the GM's narration.

True. When: DW does not use initiative. It seems weird, but you get used to it. The flow of battle often determines what happens when. "Augusta, the Bandit leader takes one look at the symbol emblazoned on your shield and yells, 'Battle Priest! Take her out!' What do you do?" How long: There are some specified limitations, for example a spell might have the text, "You cannot cast another spell while this spell is active." How far: Yeah, that's left to the GM, as are most things in this system. One of the reasons I enjoy it.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525Party Dynamics: The player characters don't hang out together (don't split the party?) - which is probably aided by the "gloss over" philosophy that is in support of ending scenes unceremoniously (as needed) and bridging time and space quickly for the next scene. Also, the players don't seem bent to support each other (Keeler's permission that Plover moves on Marie).

My parties usually work together, but there have been situations where they split. As with your typical game system, the results weren't always good (and, in one case, pretty catastrophic). Splitting like this isn't a system feature, though. A vast majority of my various groups stayed together because of strength in numbers, and shared threats, just like any other game. I haven't found significant differences here, save for the speed of play, because you're encouraged to improvise and riff on player choices.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525Complications: In the DW example, a defeated golem threatens to collapse on one of the PCs. This is a dice-generated event, whereas in a trad game, the GM would decide such a thing capriciously. And since Moves snowball, these complications keep piling on - which might be too breathless for some gamers while exciting for others.

I'm not sure this really fits. I know it only somewhat fits with my own experiences with consequences. On that, tthe dice don't generate moves with any specificity. The threatened collapse is the GM introducing a complication, just as they might in another system. The difference here would be whether a move was called for, and the GM decided this was the one (not sure which one this would be--"show signs of an impending threat?" "Turn their move back on them?" No idea. Not sure about the "snowball" thing, as you aren't required to compound the threat, once it has been addressed. All my players had experience with trad games, and had no issues with pacing in this regard.

Quote[*Choice: Tied to complications, the players quite frequently get to choose which specific effect a (partially?) successful Move should have ("I'll choose to inlict terrible harm, and to impress, dismay, or frighten my enemy."). This is much less common in traditional RPGs, especially those with binary task resolution. Here, it's the GM who generally unilaterally decides on the exact outcome and narrates it to the players.

As GM, you can allow the players to narrate the specific effect of a successful move, whether it's hardwired into the Move. I've done that on a particularly spectacular result. Not all players are into narrating the effect, though. Most often, I end up doing that, because it's sorta my job to "make their lives fantastic."I would agree that more granular systems would be more likely to have the rules tell everyone what happens. Whether this is desirable depends, I think, on how much you trust your GM to be fair, or, more likely, how important rules mastery is to the players.

QuoteCodification: AW/DW come each with playbooks representing stereotypical characters, each coming with a set of stereotypical Moves. These Moves stipulate the above mentioned Complications and Choices, depending on the result of a die roll.
 

If by stereotypical, you mean, "Fighters have fighty moves. Wizards have Wizardy moves." then, yes, I guess this would be about right. Some of these Moves modify the base moves, for example, "Veteran's Eye: when you DISCERN REALITIES while observing or preparing for a battle, you can always ask one question from the list, even if you fail." Some of the moves have specific complications (Hack-n-Slash, for example). Others, not so much. On the whole, I'd say that, yes the move lists, general or class-specific, or typical things you'd see done in a trad game. They're just given names for the purpose of driving the action.

QuoteSo what does the above mean in total? PbtA codifies genre-typical events (mostly complications, think of how Indiana Jones stumbles from one calamity into the next one). By doing so, it addresses questions of dramaturgy in RPGs, with the underlying philosophy apparently being "Never a dull moment...".
The price for that is giving up on any pretense of world simulation. Discarding circumstantial modifiers and any rigid world physics are the most egregious examples of this gloss-over mentality when it comes to modeling a living world to play in.

True. And if you don't want to simulate, this is fine.

QuoteWhat's the bottom line? As presented in the official examples of play, AW/DW simulate genre thorugh story elements. Moves are cascading ("snowballing") building blocks of typical story elements, strung together. So they might be classified as genre simulation RPGs.

How do they stack up to other genre simulation RPGs though? In comparison to AW/DW, the Knights of the Black Lily RPG*, for example, is derived from studying fiction (for example movie fight scenes) and deriving world rules ("physics") from them: for example, major heroes and/or villains usually die on the 2nd to 4th serious wound in cinematic combat. Or how many mooks does a hero kill in a 5 second timeframe? Think how cars tend to explode in the cinema world in Last Action Hero. This is more typical for traditional RPGs; they also may emulate genre - but they tend to emulate genre worlds... and dramaturgy tends to be just what happens, with dramaturgy mechanics being glossed over the way PbtA glosses over world mechanics. (KotBL tries to address the latter in part through Fortune Points.)

As a final observation then we can witness that one line between traditional games and more narrative games runs through genre simulation games: Trad Games are more genre world-emulation games whereas Narrative Games are more genre story-emulation games. This observation is perhaps not as surprising if we remind ourselves that in RPGs genre is composed of both common setting as well as plot elements of a given collection of genre fiction, lending itself to very different approaches to simulation.

Reasonable conclusion.

On the whole, I'm much more sold on DW than current D&D, because it does try to simulate an old school fantasy "feel." It's also very quick and easy to run, though it is heavily GM dependent, so a novice might have a hell of a time running it at first. It does encourage player input, which I find extremely helpful and useful. Plus, the players feel more involved. All that said, it certainly isn't for everybody. It is, however, solid enough, that I've looked at other PbtA games, including AW, and would likely run them, if I ever switch genres. My issue now is that I really don't care for any of the attempts at AW superhero games, which, if I could find one, I'd love to run it.

**Apologies for the formatting issues here**

I just use the 2d6 resolution mechanic sometimes, as a fun and simple way of running the game.

Quote from: Jaeger;1097541Basically,where a more traditional game will note exactly how far a PC can move per round, in an AW game this is done by a combination of GM fiat/common sense. Also each roll has 3 levels of success: fail, partial success (success with complication/ setback/ consequences), full success (no consequences etc.)

Actually even some standard RPGs do that. BX D&D comes to mind right off. Can you junk the chasm? Make a stat or percentile check with the chance of success being estimated by the DM based on what is known. AD&D does this as well and even 5e allows for exceeding the limits with a stat check. Other RPGs have as well to some degree.

Quote from: Jaeger;1097541Also each roll has 3 levels of success: fail, partial success (success with complication/ setback/ consequences), full success (no consequences etc.)

The small press company BETTER GAMES had that as their house system back in the 80s.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/13327/Better-Games

Quote from: Jaeger;1097541Basically,where a more traditional game will note exactly how far a PC can move per round, in an AW game this is done by a combination of GM fiat/common sense. Also each roll has 3 levels of success: fail, partial success (success with complication/ setback/ consequences), full success (no consequences etc.)

Quote from: Omega;1097548Actually even some standard RPGs do that. BX D&D comes to mind right off. Can you junk the chasm? Make a stat or percentile check with the chance of success being estimated by the DM based on what is known. AD&D does this as well and even 5e allows for exceeding the limits with a stat check. Other RPGs have as well to some degree.

Agreed that this happens some in traditional RPGs, but it's generally not the default.

A clarification about difficulty -- Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games don't have roll modifiers, but the GM does specify the result of success. So some tasks can be automatic, some might require just a single roll, while some could require multiple rolls to complete, and some might just be impossible. As a simple example, there are special weapons that give you higher damage in combat, but no weapons give you a bonus to hit. So the modifier is to the result of success, not to the roll.

That's extremely granular, and it can be clunky in some circumstances. But most of the time it's workable.

Great analysis, Alexander!

Let me add another important distinction (IMO) between AW and more traditional games: AW is all about following the PC's personal goals, dramas and issues in detriment to any central "quest" or "campaign" brought by the GM or otherwise. The game really sings when it's each PC on it's own, pushing for their goals while stepping on each other toes and sometimes - just sometimes - teaming up to save their asses from some external threat (to break up again immediatelly after). In this sense, AW is the culmination of the old Forgite "Narrativism/Story Now!" concept - agressive scene-framing, pushing for what's really important to PCs, and presenting hard moral choices about that. And this may be the starkest contrast between AW and traditional games: adventuring parties do not work here. The biggest (no, the only) actual challenge to a PC is another PC.

(And, weirdly, Dungeon World is nothing like that. DW is super traditional in this regard)

What the hell happened with the format?! Weird.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1097530Please explain the "gloss over" philosophy more. Trad games abstract lots and I'd like to understand the differences.

Sure. Let's take the example of play this bullet point is directly in response too. In the AW example, the player character hurts a female NPC telepathically. While leaning against the shoulder of her boyfriend next to her, that NPC takes damage and starts to bleed out of her ears. In the AW example, the GM announces that her bf will eventually notice and asks the player of the PC: "Do you stick around?" - "Fuck no." - "Where do you go?" - "I go home, I guess."

In a trad game with a simulationist bent it would have never played out like that because you're simulating the situation. And in that situation the NPC boyfriend should have a chance to detect that something bad just happened to his gf next to him. The blood, her body going limp or whatever. So in a simulationist game the NPC boyfriend would have had a chance to detect something was off - probably a perception roll.

In a trad game with more gamist bent this might also have been the case as part of the challenge of the scene. But the GM might also have just glossed over the chance for the boyfriend to notice it, if he didn't want to play out this challenge. Still chances are good that it would not have been that easy for the PC as in the AW example.

And then there is the other gloss over parts mentioned elsewhere like initiative order, movement rates, etc. If you want to delve into that as well, let me know.

Quote from: cranebump;1097542I've actually Gm'ed this system for 2-3 years now, including a single campaign that ran about a year. To present a review from direct experience, I'll compare your well-presented observations with what has happened at our table (for what it's worth).

I appreciate it - I just want to quickly point out that the reason I have been drawing on the AW 1E rulebook and the DW Guide to begin with is that then nobody can come up and say with a straight face: "Ah, but that's not how you play these games." No, these are downloaded from the designer's websites respectively - they come with a stamp of approval. This is how it's to be played.

Not saying I am doubting your experience, just saying that the examples of play referenced come with authority.

Quote from: cranebump;1097542On that, tthe dice don't generate moves with any specificity. The threatened collapse is the GM introducing a complication, just as they might in another system.

I don't think I said that the dice generate Moves? Yes, the dice generate complications, which in turn require action by the PCs which in turn translate into Moves. That's how one Move leads to some other, as a cascade, causing the snowballing effect.

Quote from: cranebump;1097542As GM, you can allow the players to narrate the specific effect of a successful move, whether it's hardwired into the Move. I've done that on a particularly spectacular result. Not all players are into narrating the effect, though. Most often, I end up doing that, because it's sorta my job to "make their lives fantastic."I would agree that more granular systems would be more likely to have the rules tell everyone what happens. Whether this is desirable depends, I think, on how much you trust your GM to be fair, or, more likely, how important rules mastery is to the players.

I mean - when you Seize by Force, you can select 1 or 2 effects out of a list of 4. This kind of choice is typical for AW moves but fairly uncommon for Trad Games. It's also how players in AW have more agency over the developing story than in Trad Games.

Quote from: cranebump;1097542Others, not so much. On the whole, I'd say that, yes the move lists, general or class-specific, or typical things you'd see done in a trad game. They're just given names for the purpose of driving the action.

Let's look at the Chopper playbook in AW, specifically the Move "Pack alpha". So you're trying to impose your will on your gang. If you roll 7-9 only, however (a partial success) you have to choose 1 from the following list:
• They do what you want (otherwise, they refuse)
• They don't fight back over it (otherwise, they do fight back)
• You don't have to make an example of one of them (otherwise, you must)
If you roll less than 7, someone from the gang challenges you for leadership.

All of this leads to genre-typical situations! And it's codified straight into the crunch.

Quote from: Itachi;1097578Great analysis, Alexander!

Let me add another important distinction (IMO) between AW and more traditional games: AW is all about following the PC's personal goals, dramas and issues in detriment to any central "quest" or "campaign" brought by the GM or otherwise. The game really sings when it's each PC on it's own, pushing for their goals while stepping on each other toes and sometimes - just sometimes - teaming up to save their asses from some external threat (to break up again immediatelly after). In this sense, AW is the culmination of the old Forgite "Narrativism/Story Now!" concept - agressive scene-framing, pushing for what's really important to PCs, and presenting hard moral choices about that. And this may be the starkest contrast between AW and traditional games: adventuring parties do not work here. The biggest (no, the only) actual challenge to a PC is another PC.

(And, weirdly, Dungeon World is nothing like that. DW is super traditional in this regard)

Agreed. And this is exactly why I replied to Mr. Pundit in the other thread that he was only half-right. AW is not as freely narrativist as other games of that kind because it has so many genre elements hard-coded in. But it is nonetheless a stark divergence from Trad Games. DW, on the other hand, is a substantial backtrack - a big, deliberate step back towards D&D-style games (actually towards D&D itself). There's still a difference since in DW "difficulty doesn't matter, only consequences" - but I can see why the RPGPundit could consider that pbtA game a narrativist admission of failure.

I don't think it's true for AW though. AW is different, more true to the roots.

I have to admit I'm much less familiar with AW, so apologies for certain assumptions I have made regarding moves and such. My direct experience is with DW, which is similar, but obviously not the same. I appreciate that you actually looked into the system and attempted a real analysis. Wish more people would do that.

Storygaming as we know it is pure railroad. It's the fledgling writer trying to run a tabletop rpg that fails at being a tabletop rpg.

Storygames are not tabletop rpgs. Never could be.

A tabletop gamer could only break a storygamer's game because of CHOICE. There's no real choice in Storygames --- just the illusion.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1098036Storygaming as we know it is pure railroad. It's the fledgling writer trying to run a tabletop rpg that fails at being a tabletop rpg.

Storygames are not tabletop rpgs. Never could be.

A tabletop gamer could only break a storygamer's game because of CHOICE. There's no real choice in Storygames --- just the illusion.

First, define "Storygames".
Second, as a descendant of the old Forge ideas, Apocalypse World is explicitly against railroads. One of it's GM principles being "do NOT prep plots".
And third, player choice is at the heart of the Moves structure upon which AW operate, so saying there's no real choice in it is bizarre at least.

Are you sure you're not confusing things here?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1097525

• Complications: In the DW example, a defeated golem threatens to collapse on one of the PCs. This is a dice-generated event, whereas in a trad game, the GM would decide such a thing capriciously. And since Moves snowball, these complications keep piling on - which might be too breathless for some gamers while exciting for others.

A golem falling on one of the PCs is not a "dice-generated event". This is a choice between having the GM add complications on his own and having the GM add complications only when a random roll occurs. Except trad games give the GM the authority to do so when the event fits into the pacing of the currently situation.

Quote from: Jaeger;1097541PC: I jump across the chasm!

GM: Cool! roll Brave Danger! What do you get?

PC: A 9, damn! Partial success...

GM: You barley make it! you grab a root sticking out of the other side and are just holding on to the edge of the cliff!

More simulationist game:

PC: I jump across the chasm! My leap is good for 15 feet.

GM: Cool! roll your (insert skill/attribute whatever here) What do you get?

PC: A 9! Whew I made it! I keep running after him...

GM: Alrighty then! (turns to next payer) Bob what does Grognack the Slayer do...?

Other than some meaningless narration, I don't see a difference here.